Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Qualcomm Is The Big Winner In New Blackberry Z10 Smartphone Design

Chips made by Qualcomm and Samsung have been found inside the new Blackberry Z10 smartphone, a teardown analysis found.

According to UBM Techinsights, much like the LTE version of Samsung Galaxy S3 , the Blackberry Z10 is powered by the MSM8960 baseband/applications processor. The 28nm MSM8960 integrates a multi-mode 3G/LTE modem while incorporating two asynchronous CPU cores and the Adreno 225 GPU for the applications side of the processor.

Other design wins for Qualcomm include the PM8921 power management IC, found in such devices as the Galaxy S3 LTE and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, and the RTR8600 multi-mode transceiver and GPS, also found in the Galaxy S3 LTE and the fourth generation iPad. Also found in the Blackberry Z10 is Qualcomm?s WCD9310 audio codec.

Samsung also supplies key components for the Blackberry Z10. The South Korean company provided both the system memory, in the form of 2GB of low-power DDR2 SDRAM, and the usable memory with a multichip memory package labeled KLMAG2GE4A that houses 16GB of MLC NAND flash and a memory controller.

Texas Instruments is offering the WL1273L ? a single-chip radio incorporating 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN, Bluetooth, and FM. Qualcomm has TI out.

The Blackberry Z-10 is a smartphone powered by the BB10 OS. It features a dual-core processor, 2GB of internal RAM, a display of higher resolution than Apple's "Retina" technology, an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with backside illumination (BSI) and a 2-megapixel camera for use in video conferencing. It also features Blackberry's answer to Apple?s Facetime, called BBM Video. The Z10 also features MEMS accelerometers, gyroscopes, etc.

The smartphone launched first in the U.K. on Feb, 1, in Canada on Feb. 5 and will be available in the U.S. and other countries in mid-March.